The ongoing climate talks at Lima talks will set the broad parameters of the nature of commitments India and other countries will need to make to address the issue of climate change under a new agreement, to be signed in Paris next year and implemented from 2020.

India has two challenges facing itself in Lima — how strong an oversight the new global climate change regime could have on the path of its economy and how much of the burden of reducing greenhouse gas emissions is to be shipped from the developed world in the pre-2020 period, to be borne by all in the post-2020 regime.

India’s environment minister Prakash Javadekar has been reiterating the country’s stand at international fora and his emphasis is on Common but Differentiated Responsibilities and operationalising the Green Climate Fund which has been injected with $9.7 billion for four years recently. Developed countries agreed to mobilise $100 billion per year till 2020, and the crisis of funding and technology transfer continues to plague the negotiations.

At Paris, next year, the countries will have to agree on a deal with new goals which will take the world post 2020. The Lima conference, especially after the climate deal between the United States and China last month, seeks to set the tone for the ‘Paris Protocol’ and countries will be wrangling over their Intended Nationally Determined Contributions, which they have to finalise by March 2015. While the US-China deal is low on ambition, there is nothing which is preventing India from taking on ambitious cuts and opting for a low carbon path. The key issues at Lima will centre on emission cuts and finance.

The director of Centre for Science and Environment, one of the most influential and important think-tank and CSO working on climate and environment policymaking, has recently written an Oped at Business Standard, calling the US-China climate deal as “disastrous”. She said that the US and China has operationised equity, but in a way that will take us to a path of catastrophe.

Indian experts have been saying that India should set the ground for tighter emissions cuts and ambitious national action plans and there is no need to be bound by the US-China deal. She wrote that “the United States and China have agreed to ‘equalise’ their emissions by 2030. Both countries would have ‘equal’ per capita emissions in 2030. The United States would come down marginally from its current 18 tonnes per capita and China would increase from its current seven-eight tonnes. Both the polluters would converge at 12-14 tonnes a person a year. This is when the planet can effectively absorb and naturally cleanse emissions not more than two tonnes a person a year.” This means that that each country would occupy equal atmospheric space by 2030. The United States-China deal makes it clear that both the countries individually get 16 per cent of the atmospheric space by 2030.

However, the article reveals that going by the US-China deal, India needs to do nothing. Its current per capita emissions are 1.8 tonnes and by 2030, under the business-as-usual scenario, it will be four tonnes – nowhere close to that of the US and China. Between 2011 and 2030, China will take over 25 per cent of the remaining carbon space; the US will occupy 11 per cent more and India only seven per cent more. In other words, after the United States-China agreement, India should be accelerating its growth so that it can catch up.

Interestingly, India is likely to announce new, bigger and more effective climate change targets before US President Barack Obama’s visit in January next year. It can push the country into the same league as the US and China. Senior journalist and my colleague at Business Standard Nitin Sethi has speculated that the announcement may include an ‘aspirational’ peaking year for India’s greenhouse gas emissions. However, a key Indian negotiator in Lima has refuted the analysis, saying that “peaking of emissions is not in near-term agenda of India”. Also, key source at one of the prominent green NGO has revealed that the environment minister, in recent past, has turned downed the option of peaking of emission. So, with respect to India’s stance on emission reduction there exists a shroud of mystery.

India is said to have prepared the final brief yesterday (December 2) at the Union Cabinet in New Delhi, before Mr. Javadekar’s visit for the high-level ministerial in Lima next week.

In 2010, India had committed to a 20-25 per cent cut in its carbon intensity by 2020, compared to the levels in 2005. The process to make fresh and enhanced commitments to the international community was in the works for the past few months, with the government commissioning studies to assess and project India’s greenhouse gas emissions. The results of these studies are due in December. A joint US-China announcement has incentivised India to make an early announcement in this regard.

India has released its salvo at the West on the issue of financing of project under the GCF for developing countries. “There is a lack of clarity on Green Climate Fund. We hope Lima provide a greater transparency”, said Ravi Prasad, the lead negotiator for India. Speaking on behalf of the Like-minded Developing Countries, he further saying that “we haven’t seen any meaningful conversation on technology transfer and IPR. Until we have some kind of assurance and support, it will be difficult for the developing countries to elucidate their INDCs”.

About the writer

Avik is a journalist from India, who is working for Business Standard after leaving The Pioneer recently. A powershifter and an activist, he writes on environment & climate change issues.

The 7000 or so Irrawaddy Dolphins still left in the world (and labelled vulnerable on the IUCN list) are spread somewhat discontinuously over coastal areas of Asia and some stretches of rivers in the region. One sub-population that is critically endangered is in the Mekong river.

The Mekong river is the lifeblood of several countries. It stretches over 4,300km starting from the Tibetan plateau, running through China’s Yunnan province, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. The Mekong, despite its formidable length, now confines the Irrawaddy Dolphins to a tiny stretch of only 190km between Kampi in Kratie province in Cambodia to the Laos border.

Irrawaddy Dolphin Photo by WWF Cambodia

I had the opportunity to visit Cambodia recently, and one of the main purposes of the trip was to spot the rare Irrawaddy dolphins. Ever since the disappearance of the Baiji dolphins which I had written about earlier, there has been a race against time to save the remaining endangered river dolphins of the world such as the Gangetic Dolphins, the Amazon river dolphins and of course, the Irrawaddy dolphins.

I headed off to a tiny hamlet called Kampi, in Kratie province, about 170km northeast of the capital Phnom Penh. Two days earlier, I had visited the memorial of the killing fields at Choeung Ek village off Phnom Penh, a reminder of the incomprehensible brutality of the Pol Pot regime which took the lives of more than 2 million people. The genocide of the regime in the late 1970s did not spare the Irrawaddy dolphins either – the 1000 or so which were alive in the 1970s were slaughtered systematically for their oils to be used in weapons.

Ban on gillnet fishing

Now there are only around 85 Irrawaddy dolphins in the Mekong, according to WWF Cambodia. Even though the government has banned gillnet fishing which is a current threat to the Irrawaddy dolphins, other threats remain, such as pollution in the river, and the segmentation of the remaining populations into smaller numbers – something that may get even worse with the hydroelectric dam in Laos on the Mekong.

My boatman said there are about 30 dolphins in the Kampi region, and they tend to stay in the deeper pools of the Mekong river, as the river level can go down in the dry season. The rainy season had already started this month, so I just kept my fingers crossed that the weather stayed in our favour.

As we set off, I was a bit concerned about the noise the engine was making, as I know dolphins are very sensitive to sound, but thankfully we slowed down as we approached the deeper pools. We were so lucky to spot several Irrawaddy dolphins in a narrow window when the clouds cleared up and let the sun through.

The Irrawaddy dolphins tend to stay in pods of 3 to 6, and sometimes upto 10. They are mammals, and breathe at intervals of 70-150 seconds. They make a sighing sound (which you may have noticed in the video) as they come up to breathe. The gestation period is 14 months, but the young seldom survive till adulthood on the Mekong, making it harder to replace older populations of dolphins.

It’s not easy for the people living in this region to give up fishing, and yet without the involvement of the local community, no environment can really be protected. NGOs like WWF Cambodia and the local government have been working on creating alternative livelihoods, such as tourism, handicrafts and land based farming.

It began to get very cloudy. I think the pod of dolphins sensed the rains, and began to swim away rapidly. It was time to head back. The skies opened up and it felt like the heavens poured down with all their might on the Mekong. I felt grateful to have been given this wonderful opportunity by the Irrawaddy dolphins, by the skies and perhaps by time itself to see these creatures. It was with a mixed feeling of joy and concern that we bid goodbye to this mighty river, with hope that the Irrawaddy dolphins, the heart of the Mekong continues to beat forever.

****************************************************************************************************************************************************** About the writer:

Bhavani Prakash is the Founder of Eco WALK the Talk.com which raises awareness about various environmental issues in Asia.

Please sign the Avaaz.org petition to save the endangered Irrawaddy dolphins. Avaaz mentions there are 78 dolphins left while WWF Cambodia puts the figure at 85. We’re not sure of exact numbers, but we know for sure the numbers are way too small to be ignored.

]]>http://www.ecowalkthetalk.com/blog/2014/07/23/the-critically-endangered-irrawaddy-dolphins-of-the-mekong-river/feed/0Duane Elgin: Voluntary simplicity for a regenerative futurehttp://www.ecowalkthetalk.com/blog/2013/10/27/duane-elgin-voluntary-simplicity-for-a-regenerative-future/
http://www.ecowalkthetalk.com/blog/2013/10/27/duane-elgin-voluntary-simplicity-for-a-regenerative-future/#commentsSun, 27 Oct 2013 12:23:42 +0000http://www.ecowalkthetalk.com/blog/?p=11797DUANE ELGIN is a visionary writer, speaker, social scientist and educator. Born in the USA, and based in Fairfax, California, he runs an open-source collaborative project called ‘Great Transition Stories‘ which shares narratives from a variety of trusted sources to understand the human journey, and offer hope for pathways into a sustainable future.

Duane was described in April 2009 by the Ecologist Magazine as one of the ten leading visionaries with “big ideas for a better world“. In 2006, he received the Peace Prize of Japan, the Goi Award, in recognition of his contribution to a global “vision, consciousness, and lifestyle” that fosters a “more sustainable and spiritual culture.”

Duane is well known for championing the term ‘Voluntary Simplicity’ with his 1981 book (now updated in 1993 and 2010) of the same name. In this interview with Bhavani Prakash ofEco WALK the Talk.com, he elaborates upon the concept, and shares his vision for a regenerative future for humanity.

EWTT: You’re best known for initiating the ‘Voluntary Simplicity’ movement in the early 80s. What is your key message around this now, and has the message itself or the way you communicate it changed in the last three decades?

Duane Elgin

DUANE ELGIN: Yes, there have been a number of major changes in how simplicity of living is viewed over the past 30 years. Here are a few:

First, the public conversation about simplicity is shifting from complacency to urgency. In the 1970s, there was little public concern about climate change, food shortages, species extinction, water shortages, and more. The majority of people were focused on the “good life” in the short run. More than thirty years later, these are no longer problems for the distant future; they represent a critical challenge to the human community now.

Second, as people’s sense of urgency has grown, interest in sustainable ways of living has soared, and simplicity has moved from the margins of society to the mainstream. Simpler or greener approaches to living are becoming part of everyday life and culture. Television programs on themes such as organic gardening, healthy cooking, and solar living are growing in popularity. Magazines with green themes for living are sprouting everywhere. College courses in green building and environmental management are blossoming.

Third, public understanding of simplicity has evolved from fantasy stereotypes to realistic examples and archetypes. In the 1980s, it was common for the mass media to characterize simplicity as a “back to the land” movement that turned away from technological progress. In recent years, the idea of simplicity has moved from being regarded as a path of regress to being seen as a path to a new kind of progress and social vitality.

Fourth, there has been a dramatic expansion in the scope of simplicity as it has moved from a personal issue to a theme vital to our collective future. Now we are seeing the rapid growth of interest in new forms of community, solar living, state-level sustainability initiatives, federal programs, and global agreements. Simplicity of living is no longer a personal issue; it is a theme being woven into our lives at every scale.

Fifth, over the decades, simplicity is increasingly being defined by what it is for (connecting with and caring for life) instead of what it is against (destructive consumerism). In the 1980s, simplicity was seen primarily as “downshifting” or pulling back from the rat race of consumer society. Several decades later, there is a growing recognition of simplicity as “upshifting”—or moving beyond the rat race to the human race.

EWTT: Asians, traditionally, have had cultures of ‘simplicity’, but this is rapidly changing with the wave of consumerism sweeping very rapidly through the continent. It’s modelled on a materialistic definition of growth and is fuelled by the twin forces of globalisation and media. What can be done to spread the ‘Voluntary Simplicity’ movement in Asia?

DUANE ELGIN: I would suggest that it is important for Asian countries to not be seduced by the consumerist messages of the mass media and, instead, to reclaim their cultural heritage that acknowledges the value of simplicity. In Buddhist cultures, for example, there is the idea of “wabi-sabi”. This phrase describes a feeling of appreciation for things whose wear and aging reveal life’s impermanence. For example, you may have had a cup or table in your family for several generations—and this may invite you to reflect on all the people before you that held that cup or touched that table. Each chip or scratch is not an imperfection but an added memory.

So, in my home, if I happen to scratch the dining table, I’ll say, “I’ve just ‘wabi’d’ the table” —meaning, it just got a little more patina and age—a little more value. I think we are returning to an aesthetic appreciation of the organic nature of things as they age and change. In turn, we are moving toward a more organic relationship with the Earth and a more peaceful way of being with ourselves in the midst of a materialistic culture.

EWTT: The idea of ‘sacrifice’ is anathema to most people. Doesn’t a sustainable future for humanity require some kind of sacrifice by those who already have too much, in order for them to share with those who have much too little, whether it’s within a country or across nations?

DUANE ELGIN: Simplicity does not require sacrifice. To the contrary, it is a consumerist lifestyle that requires enormous sacrifice with lifestyles that are overstressed, overbusy, and overworked. Sacrifice is investing long hours doing work that is neither meaningful nor satisfying. Sacrifice is being apart from family and community to earn a living. Sacrifice is the stress of commuting long distances and coping with traffic. Sacrifice is the white noise of civilization blotting out the subtle sounds of nature. Sacrifice is hiding nature’s beauty behind a jumble of billboard advertisements. Sacrifice is carrying more than 200 toxic chemicals in our bodies, with consequences that will cascade for generations ahead. Sacrifice is the massive extinction of plants and animals and a dramatically impoverished biosphere. Sacrifice is being cut off from nature’s wildness and wisdom. Sacrifice is global climate disruption, crop failure, famine, and forced migration. Sacrifice is the absence of feelings of neighborliness and community. Sacrifice is feeling divided among the different parts of our lives and unsure how they work together in a coherent whole.

In contrast simplicity that is voluntary—consciously chosen, deliberate, and intentional—supports a higher quality of life. Simplicity fosters a more harmonious relationship with the Earth—the land, air, and water. Simplicity promotes fairness and equity among the people of the Earth. Simplicity cuts through needless busyness, clutter, and complications. Simplicity enhances living with balance—inner and outer, work and family, family and community. Simplicity reveals the beauty and intelligence of nature’s designs. Simplicity increases the resources available for future generations. Simplicity helps save animal and plant species from extinction. Simplicity responds to global shortages of oil, water, and other vital resources. Simplicity keeps our eyes on the prize of what matters most in our lives—the quality of our relationships with family, friends, community, nature, and cosmos. Simplicity yields lasting satisfactions that more than compensate for the fleeting pleasures of consumerism. Simplicity blossoms in community and connects us to the world with a sense of belonging and common purpose. Simplicity is a lighter lifestyle that fits elegantly into the real world of the twenty-first century.

EWTT: Does a country’s definition of wellbeing and the way metrics are designed to measure this have a lot to do with either spreading or counteracting a consumerist culture? Do you think the concept of Gross National Happiness encapsulates voluntary simplicity in its core?

There is an old saying that “we treasure what we measure.” If our measure of meaning in life is based on money (for example, GNP or gross national product) then that is what we will tend to collectively treasure. If we shift our measures from money to well-being, then that will be reflected in our cultural definition of “progress.”

Let me place this in a historical perspective. The highly regarded historian, Arnold Toynbee, invested a lifetime studying the rise and fall of civilizations throughout history. Drawing upon his vast knowledge of human history, he summarized the essence of a civilization’s growth in what he called The Law of Progressive Simplification. He wrote that the progress of a civilization was not accurately measured by its material growth or its conquest of land and people. Instead, the true measure of growth lies in a civilization’s ability to transfer increasing amounts of energy and attention from the material side of life to the non-material side—to areas such as personal growth, family relationships, contact with nature, creative expression in music, theatre, and other arts, in a rich community life, and more.

The life-cycle of an individual provides a useful insight into measures of well-being. From the time that a person is born until his or her late adolescent years, there is usually a tremendous amount of physical growth. Then, in the late teen years, physical growth stabilizes and the person can continue to develop for the rest of his or her lifetime in ways that don’t involve growing bigger physically—in empathy and compassion, in intellectual understanding, and in soulful connection. In a similar way, a portion of our species has experienced a period of extraordinary period of material growth and is now moving into a stage where further growth could be primarily of a non-physical nature. In turn, this would liberate resources for those in desperate need and foster a more peaceful world. We require measures to reflect this natural but profound transition in our collective lives.

A quote from the philosopher and feminist Simone de Beauvoir helps clarify this. She wrote: “Life is occupied in both perpetuating itself and in surpassing itself; if all it does is maintain itself, then living is only not dying.” On the one hand, if we seek only to maintain ourselves, then no matter how grand our style of living might be, we are doing little more than “only not dying.” On the other hand, if we strive only for a meaningful existence without securing the material foundation that supports our lives, then our physical existence is in jeopardy and the opportunity to surpass ourselves becomes little more than a utopian dream. We require a new partnership where the material and the non-material aspects of life co-evolve and grow in concert with one another. Working together, they can produce ways of living that are materially sustainable, personally rewarding, and culturally rich and engaging.Returning to your question, as we mature as societies, we require measurements that go far beyond material growth to include the richness of non-material areas of development.

EWTT: Isn’t it hugely challenging for the person on the street to help shape a better future for the world, when they are so much a part of a system that requires them to work long hours just to make both ends meet? What would you suggest to enable a transition?

DUANE ELGIN: Yes, it is hugely challenging for individuals to make changes when the overall system of living encourages consumerist lifestyles. Our current economic systems are not designed for lives of sustainable prosperity. We require a deep redesign of our manner of living that supports simpler ways of living and, to me, this will involve a return to valuing community and smaller scales of living.

For example, a new village movement could transform urban life around the world. A flowering of diverse, neighborhood-scale communities could replace the alienating landscape of today’s massive cities and homogeneous suburbs. “Eco-villages” and “eco-neighborhoods” of a few hundred persons could provide a practical scale and foundation for a sustainable future and become important islands of security, camaraderie, learning and innovation in a world of sweeping change. Human-sized living environments would encourage diverse experiments in cooperative living that touch the Earth lightly and are uniquely adapted to each locale.

I can imagine families living in an “eco-home” that is nested within an “eco-village,” that, in turn, is nested within an “eco-city,” and so on up to the scale of the bio-region, nation, and world. Each eco-village of 100 -200 persons could have a distinct character, architecture, and local economy. Common to many of these new villages could be a child-care facility and play area, an organic garden, a common house for community meetings, celebrations, and regular meals together, a recycling and composting area, an open space, and a crafts and shop area. As well, each could offer a variety of types of work to the local economy such as child care, aging care, organic gardening, green building, conflict resolution and other skills that provide fulfilling employment for many. New forms of community could provide places for meaningful work, raising healthy children, celebrating life and living in ways that honors the Earth and future generations.

EWTT: What is role of alternative media in creating a better future? How can we improve our messaging to create a less consumerist world? What do we say better, and how do we say it better to help encourage action? What action would make the most meaningful impact to create that better future?

DUANE ELGIN: The profound consumerist bias of contemporary mass media creates an impossible double bind: Many people use the consumption levels and patterns portrayed in TV advertising to establish their sense of identity and measure their personal well-being while those same consumption patterns are simultaneously devastating the ecological foundations on which our future depends. TV commercials are far more than a pitch for a particular product—they are also advertisements for the attitudes, values, and lifestyles that surround consumption of that product. The clothing, cars, settings, and other elements that create the context for an advertisement send strong, implicit messages about the standards of living and patterns of behavior that are the norm for society. More sustainable patterns of living and consuming seldom appear on television as these themes threaten the legitimacy and potency of the television-induced cultural hypnosis generated by mass entertainment, mass advertising, and mass consumption. By default, societies are left with programming and advertising that selectively portray and powerfully reinforce a materialistic orientation toward life. By programming television to achieve commercial success, the mind-set of entire nations is being programmed for ecological failure. How can we change this?

First, we require ecologically oriented advertising to balance the onslaught of pro-consumerist messages and to foster a mind-set of authentic choice in our consumption behavior. To balance the psychological impact of the one-sided avalanche of commercials, we need “ecological ads” or “Earth-commercials” that encourage people to consume with an appreciation of their impact on the world’s dwindling resources and deteriorating environment. Earth commercials could be 60-second mini-stories portraying some aspect of a sustainable and meaningful future and could be produced by students, non-profit organizations, and local community groups working in partnership with local television stations. These ads for the Earth could be low in cost and high in creativity, and done with playfulness, compassion, and humor. Once underway, a virtual avalanche of Earth commercials could emerge from around the world and be shared over TV and the Internet.

Second, because television teaches continuously about the lifestyles and values that are the “norm” for society, we require entertainment programming that actively explores issues of sustainability and Earth-friendly approaches to living. Television teaches by what it ignores as well as by what it addresses. If an ecological consciousness and an ethic of sustainability are missing from entertainment programming, then they are likely to be missing from our cultural consciousness as well. We could get a tremendous cultural boost to sustainability from entertainment programming that explores ecological concerns and innovative ways of living.

Third, a mature citizenry requires expanded documentaries and investigative reports describing, in depth, the global challenges we now face. Because the overwhelming majority of prime-time hours on television are devoted to programming for amusement, we are entertainment rich and knowledge poor. Our situation is like that of a long-distance runner who prepares for a marathon by eating primarily junk food. We are filling our social brain with a diet of entertainment at the very time our democracies face problems of marathon proportions. We are trivializing our species consciousness at the very time we need mature communication about our pathway into the future. This is a recipe for disaster. We need a rapid and quantum increase in the level of ecologically relevant programming and a new social commitment to investigative journalism that awakens mainstream public attention to themes of sustainability.

EWTT: Take us through your more recent work, ‘The Living Universe.’ Is the paradigm that we live in a ‘living universe’ as opposed to a ‘mechanistic’ oneseen as ‘new age thinking’ or is it premised on science? What are the implications of this worldview for change agents, as well as for civil society? In particular, what does it imply for those looking to raise ‘collective consciousness’ by advocating for positive change?

DUANE ELGIN: Regarding the universe as dead at its foundations is basic to consumer societies: It makes sense to exploit what appears dead for the benefit of what seems most alive — ourselves. However, this assumption is now being questioned by both science and the world’s wisdom traditions.

Modern science now regards our universe as:
1) almost entirely invisible (96 percent of the known universe is comprised of invisible energy and matter),
2) completely unified and able to communicate with itself instantaneously in non-local ways that transcend the limits of the speed of light,
3) sustained by the flow-through of an unimaginably vast amount of energy, and
4) free at its deepest, quantum levels.

While not proving the universe is alive, these and other attributes from science do point strongly in that direction. This is not a new understanding. More than two thousand years ago, Plato said “the universe is a single living creature that embraces all living creatures within it.” All of the world’s wisdom traditions have emerged from a similar understanding.

What difference does it make if we regard the universe as dead or alive at its foundations? When children are starving, climate is destabilizing, oil is dwindling, and population is growing, why put our attention here?

Consumerism is a rational response to living in a dead universe. In a material universe, consumerism offers a source of identity and a measure of significance and accomplishment. Where do I find pleasure in a non-living universe? In material things. How do I know that I amount to anything? By how many things I have accumulated. How should I relate to the world? By taking advantage of that which is dead on behalf of the living. Consumerism and exploitation are natural outcomes of a dead universe perspective. However, if we view the foundations of the universe as being intensely alive, then it makes sense to minimize material clutter and needless busyness and develop the areas where we feel most alive — in nurturing relationships, caring communities, creative expressions, time in nature, and service to others.

If we see the universe as mostly barren and devoid of life, then it is natural to see our time on Earth as primarily a struggle for material existence, and it makes sense that we humans would pull apart in conflict. However, if we see the universe as intensely alive and our journey here as one of discovery and learning, then it makes sense that we would pull together in cooperation in order to realize this magnificent potential.

Our view of the universe as either dead or alive creates the context within which we understand who we are and where we are going. Where a dead-universe perspective generates alienation, environmental destruction, and despair, a living-universe perspective generates feelings of communion, stewardship, and the promise of a higher pathway for humanity. Although the idea of a living universe has ancient roots in human experience, it is now radically new as the frontiers of modern science cut away superstition and reveal the authentic mystery, subtlety, and aliveness of our cosmic home.

EWTT: You often use the analogy of humanity being in its ‘teenage’ years going through the ritual of fire – metaphorically representing the serious ecological and social crises facing the planet. What gives you the confidence that this teenager won’t commit suicide and does emerge from this phase as a wise adult? Will Nature even wait for humanity’s adulthood?

DUANE ELGIN: As you say, one way of regarding ourselves is as a maturing species that is going through the growth pains of our collective adolescence. Our self-image could therefore be that of a young species that is capable and gifted with untapped potentials. We could see ourselves as immersed in the predictable struggles and turmoil of our adolescent years and ready to move into our early adulthood where we are concerned with the well-being of the Earth and the long-term future of the human family. Therefore, despite humanity’s seeming immaturity in the past, we could be close to taking a major step forward in our evolution into early adulthood as a species.

Although many people describe our species behavior as rebellious, reckless, and shortsighted, many others also pointed out beneficial aspects of our adolescent stage of development. Adolescents have a huge amount of energy and enthusiasm and, with their courage and daring, are ready to dive into life and make a difference in the world. Many teenagers have a hidden sense of greatness and feel that, if given a chance, can accomplish wonderful things. Overall, the archetype of a maturing species explains a lot about our current behaviors and contains within it the promise of a hopeful future. As we grow into our early adulthood as a species, we can recognize we are an integral part of the living universe, consider the impact of our actions generations into the future, place meaningful work over pleasure seeking, measure ourselves by our soulful character, and patiently work to restore the Earth.

Bhavani Prakash is the Founder of Eco WALK the Talk .com. She is passionate about the role of individuals and communities in bringing about the much needed change we need to see in the world. She was an economist in her previous avatar, and is now an environmental and social justice activist using social media as well as offline community participation in her advocacy of a greener, fairer and happier planet. She writes and conducts talks and workshops on sustainability and can be contacted at bhavani[at]ecowalkthetalk.com. Follow Eco WALK the Talk on Facebook,Twitter, Linked IN and YouTube

We have found that one of the best ways to engage people with, and educate them about, new ways of environmental thinking is to actively involve them in creating a better future—first, for themselves, and then for others. Although marshaling opposition and marching for change may focus people’s attention for a while, to embed the essential principles of environmental awareness, sound ecological stewardship, and sustainable living into society’s collective consciousness, we need to model and then have people actually practice (and live) the changes that we wish them to make.

But, what motivational impetus shall we use to achieve our environmental education goals?

One of the world’s leading environmental affairs magazines, now The Ecologist, was founded in 1970. In the July 6, 2011 issue, in an article entitled How to inspire the next generation of eco-activists,Tom Youngman observes that “Food is familiar to all parts of society and its renaissance as a tool for self-organization and mobilization of communities has defined …a constructive, inclusive [activist] approach. “

We can and should all be teachers who “inspire people towards a cleaner, greener future.” So, let’s begin by applying Youngman’s suggestion and explore using food as an environmental teaching research subject. Researcher Julie Downs, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University, conducted a fast-food-based study, published in 2013, to see if receiving scientific information about how many calories a person should consume would help people make sound decisions about their health.

In her study, 1,094 people (ages 18 and older) at two McDonald’s restaurant locations in New York were given information about suggested calorie intake before they placed their meal orders.

A third of the study’s participants were supplied with scientific information that said women and men should limit their total daily calorie intake to about 2,000 to 2,400 calories, respectively.

Another third of the participants were given a flyer recommending that a single meal should be limited between 650 and 800 calories.

The remaining third of the participants were given no research-based scientific information at all.

Then, after each participant’s order was placed, the researcher examined his or her corresponding order receipt and gave each participant a survey to complete after they had eaten the meal.

Startlingly, her research investigation found that telling people some relevant, scientifically based calorie guidelines had no significant impact on how they used the calorie listings on the menu to make their meal choices. The women ate ~27% more calories than were recommended for a single meal and the men consumed ~11% more. Even more disheartening, those participants who were told about calorie guidelines ate an average of 49 more calories than those who received no guidelines at all.

This study’s findings resonated with our combined 60 years of experience teaching science at US high schools, colleges, and universities which have demonstrated to us that effective teaching requires much more than just telling somebody something.

The Nobel laureate and former UK prime minister, Sir Winston Churchill, once observed: “Personally, I’m always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught.” Without having the personal motivation to learn something new and then to act upon that new learning, people tend to resist learning new information and instead continue to follow old habits. To paraphrase the award-winning learning theorist David Ausubel: Much of what we call education today is devoted to answering questions that our students never had in the first place. Therefore, let’s consider the learner’s motivation to learn about a subject such as environmental science or ecology.

A 2013 American Association for the Advancement of Science published study conducted by researcher Grace Conyers, CEO of the Insanitek Research and Development firm, investigated the motivational factors for youth that inspire them to learn science and that serve to sustain that interest.

She interviewed 150 youth between the ages of 10 and 13 who had demonstrated an interest in science by enrolling in a voluntary “summer science camp” enrichment program and she then categorized their responses. Her three research questions were:

(a) What got you interested in studying science?
(b) Why do you like studying science? and
(c) What do you think you’ll do with science in the future?

For the first question, What got you interested in science?, the top-three emergent, student-generated response categories, in descending order of frequency, were: I was influenced by someone I know personally (~55%); As a child, when I played I was encouraged by others to answer my own questions (~40%); and I was inspired by the great scientists of the past (~5%).

For the second question, Why do you like studying science?, the top-three emergent, student-generated response categories, in descending order of frequency, were: I like the challenge of solving problems (~55%); I like to show-off my science learning to friends and family (~25%); and I like learning something new and different in science (~15%).

For the third question, What do you think you’ll do with science in the future?, the top-three emergent, student-generated response categories, in descending order of frequency, were: I want go into applied sciences (~52%); I want to do scientific research (~22%); and I want to do a combination of applied science work, pure scientific research work, and science teaching (~16%).

To summarize her findings, the students in this study, all of whom like to learn science, were most influenced toward pursuing science by someone they actually know; enjoy the challenge of solving problems; and want to use the science they learn to do something practical. Thus, this investigation suggests that using local, relevant role models, employing question-posing strategies, and incorporating practical examples are promising keys to effective teaching.

Lastly, how can we help to insure that our environmental teaching will bear fruit? Three researchers (Emily Schneider, Rene Kizilcec, & Chris Piech) who are involved in the Learning Analytics initiative at Stanford University and who reported their findings at a 2013 conference in Belgium, asked: Why do so many students start a Stanford online learning course (aka, a MOOC—Massive Open Online Course) and then drop out or bypass certain elements of those online classes?

Student behaviors in three such large-enrolment MOCC courses offered by Stanford faculty in computer science were analyzed. Data were collected when MOOC students completed assignments, took exams, watched videos, participated in class forums, or completed peer assessments.

The researchers found that successful course “completer” students improved their learning when they interacted frequently with other students on the online forum pages, so the investigators suggested teachers add other community-oriented interactive teaching features to online courses to encourage more academic-social behavior—such as viewing and discussing regularly scheduled videos together online.

Findings related to the MOOC online courses’ “non-completers” were that these students could be described as: course non-participators, course auditors, sporadic course element samplers, and gradual course-disengagers. Thus, it implied that online teaching may need to improve course-initiating activities, eliminate the auditing option, design the course to be sampling-proof, and continually motivate or build the perceived competence of potential course-disengagers.

In pondering the results of all three research studies presented here, we may infer that effective teaching of environmental concepts and practices:

(1) requires much more than just telling somebody something;
(2) can be improved by incorporating local, relevant role models;
(3) can be improved by employing question-posing strategies;
(4) can be improved by supplying practical examples; and
(5) can be enhanced by using interactive, community-oriented learning activities.

Whether you teach environmental stewardship to an individual or a whole class, whether you teach it directly, online, via writing, or via video-making, may we suggest that you consider the preceding three studies and the five principles mentioned above to help you increase your teaching effectiveness?

You may ask: “What benefits will accrue to me in my role as an informal environmental education teacher?” Our response would be to ask you to consider the following learning graphic. It shows a modified version of Edgar Dale’s classic, hypothesized, Cone of Experience model that we think is helpful in planning for effective teaching. Note: The percentages are informed estimates of the relative effectiveness of various teaching activities in promoting learning. Via that graphic, we wish to highlight that actually doing what you are learning about, and also the act of teaching someone else to do what you have learned are both very helpful in maximizing your own teaching effectiveness and depth of learning. Every experienced teacher will tell you that you personally will understand something much better after you have done it yourself and then taught it to someone else.

Photo Courtesy: www.danielwillingham.com

This also illustrates why we need to design our teaching activities around youth experiencing and interacting with Nature outdoors. For instance, a 12-year-old Singaporean resident, Lavanya Prakash—“a young girl with a deep passion for nature and wildlife”—plans and writes a Nature blog called ‘My Nature Experiences‘ that records her own environmental learning experiences whilst exploring local Nature trails. We think this is a nice example of combining direct learning in natural settings with teaching others about Nature (in this case, teaching online).

In short, the need for effective teaching about green living is now greater than ever. “We are all teachers at all times – with everything we do, with everything we don’t do, with everything we say, with everything we don’t say–and with our beliefs, with our attitudes–all of that, all of us,” writes Tricia Huffman.

DR. JAMES H. WANDERSEE — botanist, FLS, FAAAS–is the W.H. LeBlanc Alumni Association Professor of Biology Education in the College of Education at Louisiana State University and Chair of the Teaching Section of the Botanical Society of America. His website is EarthScholars.com

DR RENEE M. CLARY—geologist, FGS–is the Director of the Dunn-Seiler Geology Museum and Associate Professor of Geoscience Education in the Department of Geosciences at Mississippi State University. Her website is EarthScholars.com

A J Mithra, a music teacher at MCC Campus Matriculation School, Chennai, India chats with Preethi N Kumar at EWTT about his musical journey with nature, birds and wildlife. He conveys how his passion for wildlife and his profession as a music teacher lead to the discovery of the niche domain of zoomusicology, which is the study of music and communication by non-human animals.

He also shares his experiences about creating beautiful pieces of music from bird calls, his collaboration with Cornell lab of Ornithology, USA and about his recent research determining the health of ecosystems through zoomusicology. A J Mithra is working to create awareness within the teaching community on how to integrate their individual subjects with Nature. He believes that teachers have a bigger role to play in creating environmentally aware citizens for the future.

EWTT: How did you develop an interest for wildlife and birds? And how did the whole concept of creating a new genre of music from wildlife originate?

A J MITHRA: Since my school days, I always had a liking for nature as a whole. But never did I know that there is so much in store to learn from nature until I downloaded a ringtone for my mobile. That sound file was a dawn call of birds. Whenever I get a call while driving my bike, I used to park my bike to attend the call. Invariably 75% of the time I found that it was not a call from my mobile but, it was natural bird calls that I had heard. Until then I was under the impression that birds did not co-exist with man. This ignited the interest on birds and its calls.

During the same time, the fifth grade students of our school asked me to give them a project in music. Immediately, without a second thought, I split the class into two groups and asked them to collect bird calls from four different landscapes – desert and seashore bird calls for one group and grassland and mountain bird calls for another group. I asked them to do a PowerPoint presentation. Then I thought, as a music teacher, I too should do a bit of homework on this project. That’s when I thought, why not try and compose music using natural bird calls? I just browsed on the internet and found some interesting bird calls, wrote to the bird call recordist for permission to use them, which he happily shared and that’s how I did my first musical piece using about 15 different bird calls and named it “A walk thru the woods”

EWTT:Can you explain what are the instruments you use to record the voices of animals and birds. What kind of places do you actually visit to record their sounds?

A J MITHRA: In the beginning I used to record the bird calls and frog calls with my mobile. Though I was not satisfied with the result, I had no other option but to go on with my mobile, as bird-call recorders are quite expensive and beyond my budget (Remember, I am working as a music teacher in a school). During these hard moments I met my old student Ms. Jothi Krishnaswamy on Facebook after more than two decades. She was working in Australia and when she heard my music, she immediately turned into an avid bird watcher. It was during one of her birding trips t hatI asked her to record bird calls and send to me. She immediately went and bought an Olympus WS -650S recorder. Every time she went for birding, she used to record bird calls with it and mail them to me. I have done a few pieces with her recordings too. She gifted that recorder to me when she came to India and since then I’m using Olympus WS-650S. I have lots of recordist friends who willingly share their recordings for my music.

Our school is situated inside Madras Christian College, which is a 350 acres of tropical dry evergreen forest. This campus is a home for more than 120 bird species.

I record calls during my morning walks inside the campus and a few other birding spots around our area. I also record calls whenever I go on conservation trips to Bangalore, Coimbatore and elsewhere.

EWTT: What are the challenges you face while converting animal sounds into a beautiful piece of music and how long does it take for such each song to be developed?

A J MITHRA: Technicality is the only challenge I face. I use primitive softwares to make music. If only I could have better software and a better recording instrument and a laptop, this kind of music can be taken to the next level, in the sense, the music can be made more pleasing. Since there is a lot of background noise in my recordings, those noise disturbs the bird and animal calls found on the foreground. Composing a piece can take from a couple of hours to a week, depending on the inspiration I get from the bird calls and animal calls that I work with.

A J MITHRA: The virtual collaboration with Ms. Nancy Landrum of USA, was the turning point in my life. It was one of her animation of a Blue Jay playing the guitar that attracted me while browsing Celebrate Urban Birds, a web portal of Cornell lab of Ornithology, USA. I downloaded that animated picture and made music using natural Blue jay sounds and sent it back to that website. They were so impressed that they created a webpage called A virtual music video collaboration for my work with Nancy Landrum helping me on the animation of bird pictures. Nancy passed away on June 5th 2012. I miss her a lot. It was her animated Blue Jay that changed my life and here I am being interviewed by Eco Walk the Talk.

Almost 70% of the kids who had watched those animated videos with the bird call music on the background, have started taking serious interest in not just birding but conservation of nature as a whole. I have seen kids record bird calls with their parents’ mobile.

A J MITHRA: My students are my first inspiration. They are so full of questions and their thirst for ecology as a whole is second to none. Their questions help me learn more.

In spite of being seen as a threat to government policies on conservation issues by the so called bureaucrats and politicians, I also see Mr. Bittu Sahgal’s perseverance and uncompromising attitude on ecological issues as my other inspiration.

EWTT: What kind of platform do you think you would require for your music to create awareness about wildlife on a larger scale?

A J MITHRA: Media can break or make a platform. I am grateful for all the leading newspapers for having covered my music. But sadly, our country has more viewers and listeners than readers. If television and radio could step in and start playing this kind of music, I am sure people will start listening more to nature.

If a doctor doesn’t listen to his patient, he will not know the patient’s pain. If a lawyer doesn’t listen to his client, he will never be able to get justice. It is only when people start listening to nature that they will know the pain and agony that nature undergoes.

But are we teaching people to listen to nature? This music can inspire the general public to listen to nature.

EWTT: Though you are a music teacher by profession, can you tell us how your passion for zoomusicology has influenced or increased awareness about wildlife and birds among students? What do you think has to be done to increase awareness about depleting wildlife among students?

A J MITHRA: I have seen so many out there who are still not able to listen to a bird call or even a cricket call that exists in our environment. It is not that they are deaf but its because their ears are not tuned to nature. I was deaf to nature until I started using the ringtone of dawn chorus. That ringtone dawned on me and I started noticing the existing bird calls that I had thoroughly missed for several decades. Almost all the students of my school come running to me if they find an insect, a bee, a caterpillar, a moth, a butterfly, a bird, a spider, frog, a toad or even a cocoon. In fact after every weekend, at least one student would come up with a story of an encounter he or she had with a wild life species. We have even created a sparrow map of our municipality and have contributed to the sparrow census of India with the help of our students. Thanks to birds and animal music, they have stopped hurting even an ant. In fact one of our fourth standard student, Jemima stopped her mom from killing a mosquito. The reasoning she gave was that is that it’s part of our food web and we should not snap our food web.

Here is the video called “Freaking Froggy” along with facts about the importance of frogs in the food web:

Zoomusic can bring people back to the basics of listening to nature. While I was talking about zoomusic to a young naturalist Angel Merlin, she remembered how her parents use to say that their hens they reared at home would soon incubate, just by identifying the change in their calls.

Every subject on the face of the earth right from Mathematics to Material science and Politics to Philosophy is not life-oriented. Environmental Science is the only subject that is life oriented that we use in our day-to-day life. But sadly, Environmental Science is not considered as a “must” study subject. If only the education department takes up this challenge and drafts Environmental Science as a compulsory subject, I am sure students will be exposed widely to environment and environmental issues, which would surely make an impact not only among students but also among teachers too.

More than 75% of the teachers are not aware of even the basic ecological issues like saving paper, water and food. A Headmaster of a reputed Higher Secondary School in urban Chennai, requested me once to conduct an orientation program for female teachers on disposal of sanitary napkins, before creating an awareness to the girl students. He said that even teachers do not know to dispose them and how often he had to bring in men to flush out the block in the staff toilet.

Most of all, no matter what subject she or he handles, every teacher should understand that they also have a role to play when it comes to preservation of environment. I would say it’s wrong to say that only science teachers should handle environmental issues. Any subject teacher can teach their subject through nature. A physics teacher can take the students out for a bird walk and can teach air thermals. A maths teacher can teacher the angle of elevation and the distance between the predator and the prey during the course of a nature walk. All that the teachers need is the same passion that they have for the environment as they have for their own subject and a little bit of creativity. It’s after all the teachers who play a big role in the making of good citizens, isn’t it?

EWTT: Can you share some of the ‘wow’ moments, moments where people were very fascinated, inspired about your idea or where people actually became aware of the importance of wildlife preservation, about biodiversity through your music?

AJ MITHRA: After doing my first bird call music, ”A walk thru the woods”, out of curiosity I googled and yahooed to see if anyone had done this type of music, and I found that Jim Fassett , a renowned musician had done an album using bird calls. But the biggest difference between his work and mine is that, he had stretched and skewed the bird calls and had composed music. But I have never tampered with the bird calls and I use them as they are, pure and unadulterated. The only manmade musical sound that I add is percussion instruments and that is only to create more interest by showing how clinical the wildlife species are in terms of rhythm. In that sense, I would boldly say that I am the first one in the world to compose a whole piece of music using natural bird calls. This was my first “wow” moment which spurred me on to do more of this kind of music.

Sharon, who works for an NGO and the daughter of a Professor at Madras Christian College, had been living inside the campus since her birth, but once she heard my bird music that I had composed using sounds recorded in and around the same campus said, “HOW DID I MISS ALL THESE WONDERFUL SOUNDS FOR THIS LONG?”

Dr. Michael Faraday, Head of the Department of Tamil language, Madras Christian College (MCC) asked me to give a presentation on the bird music that I do. I chose to give a talk on “ The influence of bird calls in poetry and music of MCC”. During the talk I showed how the poets and musicians of MCC had derived inspiration from the bird calls that exists around them using audio files. I was able to convince those poets which included the Head of the Department as well, and the musicians how they had used the rhythmic phrases of the babblers, White browed Bulbuls, Pied Cuckoo and Oriental Magpie Robins in their compositions. They were stunned.

Dr. Hollis Taylor, calls me a Bird DJ and christened me Zoomusicologist for the first time in my life and entered my profile in her website “Zoomusicology” among all the most accomplished Zoomusicologists of the world.

Recently I got a mail from the editor of the Limca Book of Records (LBR), the Indian version of the Guinness Book of Records, asking me to send my work on bird and animal music and also my profile. She said that though the last date receiving of entries for LBR got closed almost two months back for the 2013 edition, she still wanted to include my work this year itself. This I would say is the icing on the cake.

EWTT: Since zoo-musicology is a unique skill by itself, have you found any like-minded people or forums to discuss your work or to learn new ways to improve your skills?

Photo: Hipporhythmics

A J MITHRA: Zoomusicology is alien to India and Asia as well, since I have yet to come across a zoomusicologist from Asia. Right now, I am trying hard to help people see how zoomusic is so very important to determine the ecological status of a given environment. How I wish more people put up their hands to study the natural birds and animal calls as not just music but perfect signals of degrading environment.

I am fortunate to have zoomusicologist friends like Dr. Hollis Taylor of Australia and Dr. Allan Powers from USA, with whom I discuss and analyse this very interesting subject.

EWTT: What are you future plans? As you are the first Indian Zoo Musicologist? How do you perceive your passion to be passed onto the next generation to keep the legacy alive?

A J MITHRA: Almost all zoomusicologists are pursuing hard to express the musical nuances found in birds and animal calls. But, I want to go ahead and show how they are not music alone but warning signals of a given environment. The tag of the first Indian Zoomusicologist, has in fact pushed me on to study and to take up research on not just the musicality found in wildlife sounds but, a step ahead on how zoomusic can be effectively used as a barometer to determine the ecological status of a given environment. During the course of this research I found only a few people like Dr. Bernie Krause and Dr. Allan Powers are trying to show how the missing sounds of birds and animals once found in an environment can help us find the cause of a depleting environ. I am happy that I am one among them.

Homo Sapiens are the only species in the entire earth whose communication is based around ssues such as love, sex, marriage, money, drugs, business, sports etc., but wildlife communicates only on global warming, disaster, climatic changes and pollution. This research should open new avenues. But for the younger generation to take up this subject, they need lots of patience, perseverance and dedication. If only universities the world over, lays emphasis on the importance of this field for conservation of the environment and with proper encouragement and guidance I am sure the tech savy younger generation would surely come up trumps and create deep inroads with the help of the latest gadgets.

I have just discovered a new fact about America. Most American households do not throw their kitchen waste in the garbage bin; they throw it down their drains. An interesting contraption installed under the kitchen sink called the garbage disposal unit captures the food waste, shreds it into small pieces (less than 2mm) after which it passes into the plumbing. This is in contrast to cities in Asia where most water authorities instruct the people to scrape off all food particles from dishes and throw them in the garbage bin before washing the dishes.

Food Wate Disposer Photo: Designofkitchen.net

In the US, the rationale behind allowing food waste to become a part of the wastewater circuit is that it is a lesser evil than when it is a part of the solid waste circuit. Carrying food waste in trucks for disposal is fraught with public health and environmental risks, it is believed. If burned in waste-to-energy facilities, the high water content of food scraps does not allow it to generate much energy. If it is buried in landfills, it decomposes to generate methane gas which is a potent greenhouse gas.

On the other hand, when food waste is pulverised with water, the existing sewerage network can be used for transporting it into treatment plants, which are well-equipped to deal with organic solids. These can be converted to biosolids and used as fertilisers for soil. Advanced facilities can also recover methane for producing energy. According to one study, food waste produces three times as much biogas as municipal sewage sludge.

In Asian cities, the case for keeping food waste out of treatment plants is that the higher organic carbon load leads to a higher biological oxygen demand which in turn leads to a higher consumption of oxygen. This increases the cost of aeration. More sludge is produced. Treatment plants in Asia are already struggling to meet the needs of millions and cannot be saddled with the load of food waste. Besides, it also contributes to eutrophication and toxicity of water bodies. But by far, the best solution even in an urban set-up, which is only being carried out by some environment-conscious individuals is composting at household level. Composting helps to turn food waste into rich soil, which can be used for gardening and farming. Done at household level, it helps to reduce the volume of garbage to be disposed by municipal authorities as well as the load on municipal treatment plants. Also, the release of methane gas from landfills is avoided.

Unfortunately, not much is being done by authorities to disseminate information about composting, and it does not feature as a waste management strategy in most countries. There is a lack of specific targets and economic instruments to drive waste minimisation. The centralised collection of wastes as well as wastewater has become a way of urban life and the authorities are not interested in thinking out of the box. And yet, it has been demonstrated that composting can be done even in apartments. With food waste forming 10 to 20% of solid wastes in many countries, it is time to take a fresh look at its disposal. Composting is a skill that needs to be taught in schools. Enough waste has been wasted.

About the Author

Sahana Singh is Editor of Asian Water, Asia’s leading trade magazine on water and wastewater. She is the recipient of Developing Asia Journalism Award, 2008. Currently based in the US, she continues to write on water related articles in the Asian context.

He speaks to Professor John Wiseman who is currently Professorial Fellow at the Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute and Melbourne School of Population Health, on 31st July 2012.

JOHN WISEMAN: If you had just a few sentences to summarise the key messages you most wanted to get across in writing Plan B and World on the Edge, what would you say?

LESTER BROWN: The two biggest challenges, I think, that the world faces right now are the need to stabilise the climate and to stabilise population. Neither of these are easy but we’re well on our way to stabilising population. There are now 46 countries that have, essentially, zero population growth and a large part of Asia that is China, along with Korea, and Japan’s already stabilised its population. China’s going to be there in a matter of years so that’s a big chunk of the world. Then Europe,Western and Eastern Europe, have already stabilised their populations.

North America is moving in the right direction. Latin America is doing surprisingly well. Brazil’s population is projected to grow by 12% between now and 2050, only 12% which means they’re getting the brakes on pretty nicely, too. So the two big areas we have to concentrate on now are the Indian subcontinent, which has a total of 1.6 billion people. That’s India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal and so forth, and Sub-Saharan Africa. Those are the two big population growth areas. They are also the two areas where most of the poverty is concentrated so we need to really concentrate on getting the brakes on population growth in those two regions of the world.

If we can do that, and it’s a combination of, of course, making sure reproductive healthcare and family planning services are available but it’s also education, making sure that children everywhere get at least an elementary school education, girls as well as boys. Then, we can begin to bring the birth rate down in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Indian subcontinent. Then, we’ll be on the way home.

JOHN WISEMAN: And in relation to climate?

LESTER BROWN: Climate is a much more difficult issue. In contrast to population where 46 countries have already stabilised populations, there aren’t too many countries that have stabilised carbon emissions yet so that’s really a global challenge for us.

The good news is that in the United States, carbon emissions are starting to drop and I think are going to continue to drop very substantially during this decade.

The two big sources of carbon emissions in the US, as in most of the world, are coal and oil. We have, currently, 492 coal-fired power plants in the United States. Of those, 109 are scheduled to close within, if not this year, next year or very soon and there are more coming. We have a national campaign now that’s led by the Sierra Club called the Beyond Coal Campaign and the goal is to close every coal-fired power plant in the United States. Sierra’s working with many local groups, health groups, environmental groups, hundreds and hundreds of them across the country to close these plants. Mayor Bloomberg of New York in July of last year gave the Sierra Club Beyond Coal Campaign $50 million. This is important, not just because it’s $50 million, although that, obviously, is important in and of itself, but it’s because Michael Bloomberg, one of the most successful businessmen of his generation, almost a household name, is the one who’s fuelling this effort. So I’m very optimistic on closing coal-fired power plants.

Now, with gasoline use, we have a number of trends coming together, some economic, some social, some political. One is that the US automobile fleet has started to shrink. In 2008, it was 248 million. 2009, it dropped to 246 million, 2010, to 242 million. That’s the last year for which we have complete data but I think it continued in 2011 and is going to continue in 2012. So in the United States, the growth of the automobile fleet’s been underway for a century now, is starting to decline.

Beyond that, the fuel efficiency of cars is increasing very fast in the US and this is partly because of the goals created by President Obama. When he was bailing out Detroit a couple of years ago, he got some commitments from them and one was to double the fuel efficiency of new cars sold by 2025 or, stated otherwise, new cars sold in this country in 2025 will use only half as much gasoline as those sold in 2010. So in 15 years, we’re cutting fuel use per car in half.

Beyond that, there’s now a cultural shift occurring in this country with young people. They are not part of the car culture in the way that my generation was and we, particularly growing up in a rural community, the car was how we socialised. When you’re 17 you’ve got a driver’s licence and you’ve got a car, or a pick-up truck, something you could drive, and that’s how you got around and got to see your friends in a rural community.

Today, we’re a largely urban society and so young people aren’t part of the car culture in the way that we were. There’s a real shift going on. They live in cities, most of them, and they use public transportation, they use bicycles. The Bike-Share Program, if you look at the people on these bikes, they’re between 20 and 40. They’re not between 60 and 80. No, it’s young people who are really taking to bikes and seeing them as their transport mode. So the combination of bikes and public transportation is where young people are today.

Two generations ago, the dream was to have a house in the suburbs and a car and so forth. That dream doesn’t exist anymore for young people. They’re not going to the suburbs. They don’t really want anything to do with the suburbs. They want to live in town.

JOHN WISEMAN: You’ve described some extremely optimistic indicators around energy efficiency and the shift from fossil fuel to renewable energy. If I was to ask you the biggest obstacles – the one or two biggest roadblocks in relation to solving the climate challenge, how would you describe them?

LESTER BROWN: It would be the vested interests of big oil, and big coal and the influence they have, particularly in the Republican Party. They put a lot of money in political campaigns and now there are no limits on what they can put in so they’re just buying everything in sight.

Nonetheless, the trends are pretty clear and the gains in fuel efficiency, the cultural shift in young people regarding cars, is happening and it’s very difficult for them to alter that.

I saw an article about NASCAR recently…you know, automobile racing, car racing, and they’ve suddenly begun to panic because young people aren’t going to the races and so they’re seeing a shrinking audience. It’s an interesting question because I don’t think NASCAR’s going to last forever. Years, maybe, but not forever because the idea of having a powerful car with a lot of horsepower under the hood, it’s just not where young people are today. So these cultural shifts are more difficult to measure, usually, than economic shifts and they’re more difficult to anticipate as well but we’re clearly seeing a cultural shift and young people in this country are not, most of them, not part of the car culture.

JOHN WISEMAN: So do you feel, therefore, that the cultural shifts that you’ve talked about are sufficient to overcome the vested interest roadblocks that you’ve mentioned?

LESTER BROWN: They are. The automobile industry, behind the scenes, do things… to prevent heavy investment in public transportation…they insist that we need to repair the roads and not build new transit facilities, so they’re behind the scenes and they’re doing things but the tide is pretty strong and it’s clear.

John Wiseman: Which leads me to a question about urgency. Many people will say that, yes, there are many good things happening in relation to energy efficiency and renewable energy, but we also know how quickly greenhouse gas emissions are rising and what the science tells us about the global temperature changes locked in and so on. When people say to you, “that’s all good …but it’s too late” what do you say to them?

LESTER BROWN: When we use the term “Is it too late,” we have to say, “Is it too late for what?” Is it too late to prevent climate change from spiralling out of control? I don’t think anyone knows. We have to hope it’s not and then act accordingly with the urgency that that implies.

We’re seeing evidence now, almost every day, that the climate system is changing and this is obviously affecting the food prospects because agriculture, as it exists today, evolved over an 11,000 year period of rather remarkable climate stability. I mean, there were a few blips here and there and a mini ice age in the 13th century, but basically 11,000 years of pretty stable climate. So agriculture systems are designed to maximise production with that climate system but that climate system is now changing so with each passing year, the climate system and the agricultural system are more and more out of sync with each other and that is a very difficult thing to analyse and anticipate.

We know it’s happening. It’s inevitable and the question is can we get carbon emissions coming down soon enough to avert the worst consequences of climate change? We’re not going to avert all of them. We’re already experiencing them. I guess the question is, can we keep climate change from spiralling out of control? I don’t know the answer to that question but we certainly have to try.

JOHN WISEMAN: Returning to the point you’ve made about energy efficiency and the transition from fossil fuels to renewables, how much do you also think that the third element in that transition that needs to change is a reduction in the aggregate growth of the consumption of goods and services? How important is that in the mix?

LESTER BROWN: Well, another interesting thing about the cultural shift is that the idea of acquiring property…starting with a small house and getting a bigger one and so forth, that acquisition of material things doesn’t exist with young people in the way it did with an earlier generation; the generations that were shaped by the Depression and World War Two, for example.

There was a period when growth was everything and more material possessions was everything but I think we’re beginning to leave that behind now. Values and attitudes are changing. The acquisition of material wealth is not something that looms very high in the minds of young people today. They don’t want to be bothered with it.

JOHN WISEMAN: How much of that is true, do you think, outside of the developed world – in China, Korea and India, where there is still considerable poverty and – many people would say – considerable need to expand material consumption?

LESTER BROWN: Well, the interesting question is what these countries are facing. I mean, their desire is to be like us and so they’re trying to adopt a 20th century economic model in the 21st century. Now, what if we sat back and said, “If you were designing an economy for the world today or some component like a transport system, if you were designing that for the 21st century, what would it look like and how would it be different from the one we’ve inherited from the 20th century?” The answer is it would be very different. If you were developing a new economy today, you’d have to take into account land scarcity, water scarcity, carbon emissions, a whole series of things that were not of particular importance in decades past but now they are.

So the question is how fast that rethinking will come.I remember doing a seminar for graduate students at Tsinghua University which is sometimes referred to as the MIT of China. It’s located in Beijing, and we were talking about cars and the future and I said, “Well, you know, you’re not going to be able to do what we did.” One student said, “But that’s our dream. That’s what we want, we want to do that,” and I said, “You know, in the United States, we have three cars for every four people. If you get three cars for every four people in China, you will have nine hundred million cars. If you get all the cars in the world today squeezed into one country, one third of one country because two thirds of China is uninhabitable,” I said, “that will not be a dream. That will be a nightmare.”

These are engineers, they should be thinking about how you design a transportation system for the 21st century, not how do you copy one that evolved during the 20th century. Forget the imitation. Be original. Be yourselves. Ask the relevant questions for today. Don’t ask how could we do what they did in the last century. That’s not where you want to be.

JOHN WISEMAN: I’m interested in your views about theories of change – how change happens. Can you talk a bit more about your view about the importance of cultural and social change as opposed to the importance of technological innovation?

LESTER BROWN: Well, Malcolm Gladwell pioneered the concept of social tipping points, of political tipping points, and the interesting thing about tipping points is almost by definition, they’re difficult to anticipate, at least to anticipate accurately. Sometimes we don’t even see them coming. I mean, who saw the Berlin Wall coming down, you know, until it actually went down or I look at the Arab Spring of 2010 and it changed the government in almost every country in a large part of the Arab world and it happened in sort of several countries simultaneously.

These weren’t sort of random events. They’d reached a kind of tipping point suddenly. Things began to change. Partly it’s political, part of it is demographic; a lot of young people in the 15 to 30 age group. It’s technological; they have the internet now so they can organise, they can exchange information. It changes the whole ballgame. It’s not just a few adjustments here and there. It really fundamentally changes things.

We have an effort in Italy right now, led by a comedian, Beppe Grillo, to challenge the existing political structures, not of any particular party, just the traditional political structures, and they’ve begun running candidates for office just a week ago, two weeks ago. A 31-year old was elected Mayor of Palma, for example. They’re running candidates for all the local elections and everything. I mean, it’s amazing to see it happen and we’re going to see more of that.

We’re really on the edge of some fundamental changes that we can’t anticipate associated with the internet and information moving on the internet. It will override some of the traditional constraints of the systems but in ways that we cannot now easily imagine.

JOHN WISEMAN: So, given that, I’d like to ask you to put on your most optimistic hat and imagine we are sitting here in 2030 and we are discussing a world in which a really serious shift has begun towards the kind of changes which would have a real chance of preventing runaway climate change. Bearing in mind your point about how unpredictable the future can be, can you tell me how that change has occurred?

LESTER BROWN: Most of us don’t like to change. I don’t like to change and I’ll go to great lengths to avoid changing sometimes but you reach these tipping points and then everything changes.

The United States before World War Two, if you’d conducted a poll on December 6th 1941, the day before the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour, and said, you know, “Should we go to war?” probably 90% would have said, “No, we don’t want to get involved in another world war.” If you’d conducted that poll on Monday, December 8th, probably 90% would have said, “Yes, we’ve got to go,” and so it was just one event, that surprise attack. It was very successful from a military point of view on Pearl Harbour. I mean, the Japanese sunk half our Pacific fleet there in just one fell sweep but everything changed and we mobilised, we totally restructured the US industrial economy, not in decades, not in years but in a matter of months. Part of the key to that was banning the sale of automobiles.

President Roosevelt, early 1942, I think it was April 1st, and it wasn’t April Fool’s Day, I mean, it wasn’t an April Fool’s joke, he said, “We ought to ban the sale of automobiles in the United States.” Then the car companies realised that they weren’t going to be making cars for a long time; they were going to be making tanks and planes. It created an extraordinary military machine and turned the tide in the process.

So it’s these tipping points that are difficult to anticipate but I think within the next five years, we’re going to be surprised at how fast things have changed and how fast we have changed, whether it’s in response to climate change and recognising the need to stabilise climate. I mean, up until now, climate change has mostly been someone else. You know, we see it on TV. It’s a flood or a heatwave in Moscow but suddenly this past summer was sort of like that.

In this country, we started with a drought and then the wildfires in Texas and then flooding in the Mississippi and then Hurricane Irene and so forth; the tornado in Tuscaloosa and then in Joplin. I mean, it largely destroyed two middle-sized towns. I realised that the news channels were becoming weather channels. set aside on a Saturday afternoon, 1.30 to 3.00, to watch the world track and field championships in Korea on NBC. This was on a Saturday. I turned on NBC channel at 1.30 and I didn’t get the track and field championships. I got Hurricane Irene. This is a major news network that had gone into around-the-clock coverage of the hurricane. It was a huge hurricane and it affected a lot of people on the East Coast. That, I think, is a sign of the times when news channels become weather channels and if you look at channels now and sort of think about it, they spend a lot more time on weather than they used to and people are interested in it. They’re concerned about that.

JOHN WISEMAN: Although the challenge then becomes how to join the dots between the weather and climate. Do you think people are starting to join those dots?

LESTER BROWN: They are. I liken it to recognising the link between smoking and health 20 years ago and the tobacco company CEOs are under oath saying, “There’s no proof of a link between smoking and health,” and get away with it. Then, within a year or two, everything had changed and they couldn’t say anything because no one would listen to them and no elected member of Congress would be seen in public with a tobacco company CEO. It just changed that fast. The Tobacco Institute used to be here in town, staffed by 300 people. Totally dismantled; forced to dismantle by NGOs and public opinion. I mean, it was amazing to see it happen. It happened very quickly…it had reached the tipping point and suddenly it was an entirely new ball game.

JOHN WISEMAN: Bearing in mind everything you’ve said about tipping points and given that at the end of the day tipping points are, by definition, to some extent, unpredictable, what’s your view about the highest priorities for action by people who would like to ensure, that when the tipping points occur, that responses can be as effective as possible? What are the most important things to be doing at the moment?

LESTER BROWN: The question I get most often as I travel around the world is, people ask me, “What can I do, what can I do?” and I think they expect me to say, “Recycle your newspapers, change your light bulbs,” and so on. Those lifestyle changes are important but we now have to change the system and that means becoming politically active, not for one party or another but to support the Beyond Coal campaign, for example. And be prepared to write letters to your Congressman to lobby, to demonstrate, you know, in front of a coal-fired power plant if necessary or in front of a utilities office. It can embarrass companies. There are banks in New York, investment banks, that if you threaten them with a demonstration, they’ll almost certainly think twice about going ahead on something because whether it’s Goldman Sachs or Bank of America or whoever, they don’t want their image smirched.

Having demonstrations and people with signs walking around creates that image that something is wrong and for people to start thinking something is wrong with a bank is not healthy for the bank. So we see environmental groups getting investment banks to agree not to invest in coal or any company that supports the development of coal. These things can become important and the coal-mining companies can’t raise capital as easily as they used to. No one wants to be associated with it. So those are the kinds of things that have happened and they happen quickly and they can have extraordinary consequences.

My bottom line feeling is things are going to change much faster than we realise and I think that change is probably more evident here in the United States right now where carbon emissions are dropping very fast as coal-fired power plants are closed and as gasoline use drops. Another interesting linkage between the two…42% of the diesel fuel used in the freight sector, rail freight sector, is used to move coal. If we’re not moving coal anymore, suddenly the demand for diesel is going to drop markedly.

JOHN WISEMAN: I’m very interested in what you’ve been saying about the United States because, certainly in the Australian media and to some extent in Europe, the story is sometimes told that, “Well, look, you’ve got a congress that’s controlled by very conservative forces, Tea Party Republicans and so on. There’s no sign of Cap and Trade coming back…the United States is not in a leadership position.” You’re telling, to some extent, a different story there, at least about the level of cultural change and, indeed, the harder indicators of shifts in energy usage and so on.

LESTER BROWN: Yeah, and the interesting thing is it’s happening because of a mix of things. If I were to pick the two most important things underway right now, one would be reducing gasoline use by cars, of new cars sold, by half, between 2010 and 2025. That’s the US government-designed policy.

The other is the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign, closing coal-fired power plants. Now, there’s some overlap because EPA issues, restrictions on mercury emissions from coal plants, what-have-you, that makes it more difficult for them to stay in business. So we have two major initiatives, one primarily government, the other primarily in the NGO sector.

John Wiseman: If you had a minute or two with the world’s key decision-makers and you had two or three sentences in which you really wanted to convey very sharply, the most important priorities in relation to climate and ecological challenges, what would you say to them in two or three sentences?

LESTER BROWN: I’d say the biggest challenge we face is stabilising climate and that means closing coal-fired power plants, replacing the coal with wind and solar and geothermal energy.

The second big challenge we face is stabilising population and that’s a challenge that’s really concentrated in the Indian sub-continent and Sub-Saharan Africa and what we need to do there is to eradicate poverty, which we have the resources to do now, eradicate poverty and make sure that women everywhere have access to reproductive healthcare and family planning services.

John Wiseman: Thank you very much.

ABOUT THE INTERVIEWER:

Professor John Wiseman is currently Professorial Fellow at the Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute and Melbourne School of Population Health.

This interview originally appeared in Post Carbon Pathways, a website which aims to strengthen the understanding of the actions needed to create rapid, large-scale transitions to a just and sustainable post carbon future.

The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is today.

– Chinese Proverb

By Bhavani Prakash

What is this life if full of care, we have no time to plant a single tree?

And what better way to express our gratitude to Mother Nature, compensate for our heavy footprint, and restore the land for generations to come, than to plant a tree? He who plants a tree, as Lucy Larcom the 19th century poet said, plants hope. He plants a joy, he plants peace, he plants youth, and he plants love.

Today, 5th June 2012 is World Environment Day and we take this opportunity to pledge our support to Project Green Hands, an inspiring grassroots initiative of the not-for-profit organisation, Isha Foundation. Its ambitious mission is to restore the green cover in Tamil Nadu, India to 33% by planting 114 million trees.

The programme was lauched in 2004 on World Environment Day, and has enabled the planting till date of more than 14 million saplings in Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry, with the help of more than 1.5 million volunteers.

In 2010, Project Green Hands (PGH) won a national award in India, the Indira Gandhi Paryavaran Puraskar award in recognition of its efforts to create environmental awareness and reverse ecological degradation. PGH also has a Guinness World Record of planting most number of saplings in three days: 8,52,587.

Listen to Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev, Founder of Isha Foundation, share his thoughts about Project Green Hands and the urgent need to reforest the earth.

A single sapling costs only Indian Rupees 50 (less than 1 USD and just over 1 Singapore dollar). Every little counts by way of your contribution.

By donating just Indian Rupees 50 per sapling through giveisha.org/pgh Project Green Hands (PGH) will plant trees on your behalf in Tamil Nadu, India. The saplings will be provided to farmers for planting in their farmlands. PGH tracks the exact location of their trees and the details of the farmer who will plant and take care of it.

Project Green Hands hopes to plant 300,000 trees for World Environment Day 2012. The World Environment Day campaign will run for June and part of July 2012. PGH continues beyond that period to achieve its larger objective of planting 6 million saplings in 2012.

Your help to spread the word, and contribution, however small, really matters in achieving these goals to reforest Tamil Nadu.

FAQs (as provided by Project Green Hands of Isha Foundation)

1. What is Give Isha?

GIVE ISHA is an online fundraising portal through which people can support for Isha Foundation’s social initiatives in Education – Isha Vidya, Health – Action for Rural Rejuvenation and Environment – Project GreenHands.

PGH is providing trees to farmers for planting in their farmlands. PGH has been working with farmers in Pudukottai, Erode, Tirunelveli districts of Tamil Nadu.

3. How can trees be tracked?

While taking saplings from PGH, the farmer has to register his name, contact details and location. This is stored in the PGH database. After the plantation is done, a survey will be carried out by PGH to confirm whether the saplings have been planted. So when an individual donates for a tree, he will be assigned a tree from the PGH database.

4. Will we get anything if we donate?

Once you make a donation, you will get an email with tree certificate indicating the total number of trees planted by you.

5. How can we donate?

You can donate online: log on to giveisha.org/pgh and offline: or send an Indian Rupee DD/ Cheque drawn in the favour of “ Isha Outreach” to Project GreenHands , Isha Yoga Center, Velliangiri Foothills, Semmedu post, Coimbatore – 641114.

6. How much is the minimum donation?

One Sapling: Indian Rupees 50/- (about 1 Dollar)

7. After I donate, what is the next step? How do I know what is happening and when the sapling planted?

Once you make a donation, you will get an email with tree certificate indicating the total number of trees planted by you. A tree tracking code will be specified on the certificate. Using this code you can track your tree starting Jan 1st 2013, on projectgreenhands.org/track

8. Why this time gap – why can’t I track the tree immediately?

The planting season begins in the month of September and trees can be planted till December. After the plantation is done, a survey will be carried out by PGH to confirm where the saplings have been planted. After which each donor will be assigned a tree from PGH’s database.

9. If I donate at separate occasions, will I get different certificates? Can I have it in the name of someone other than me?

Yes, you will get a different tree certificate each time you make a donation. If you want the certificate in someone else’s name, please fill in their particulars in the Donor details.

10. Are there any centers/stalls where something is set up for this campaign? If so, where?

No, the donation can be done only Online or a DD/ Cheque needs to be sent to PGH directly.

11. As someone who has donated and is interested in this campaign, how can I help? What can I do?

Many people may get inspired just by seeing your enthusiasm for the project. Spreading the word is the most important help you can do to us. You can take the message to all your friends and relatives by send them emails and videos, sharing on facebook, twitter and other social media.

Create your own campaign page on the Give Isha site and get all your colleagues and friends to join you.

Dr. Tom Crompton is a Change Strategist at World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) UK, and if you’re intrigued by his job description, suffice it to say he has been involved in some cutting-edge research on going to the heart of what should be the approach of communication campaigns – of environmental organisations and those of the non-profit sector in general.

EWTT: How did your interest in human psychology and environmentalism evolve?

Dr. Tom Crompton: I have worked at WWF-UK for ten years .The first five years, I worked on international trade and investment policy – for example, World Trade Organisation (WTO) law. I was convinced then and am still convinced now that the international trade regime is crucially important from the sustainability perspective to ensure that we are producing and trading in more sustainable products with lower carbon footprints. Several senior negotiators were themselves deeply convinced for the need for more fundamental change to the trade regime on a sustainability basis but they’d say, “look, our hands are tied, we don’t enjoy the political space, we don’t experience public political pressure for more proportional change” and as a result the change that we saw was small.

I think that forced us really to reflect on what is it that creates political space and pressure for more proportional change, what is it that motivates people to engage with the political process, whether it is to lobby with members of parliament or to demonstrate on the streets or however else they may express their political frustration. Some social psychologists came back to us and said that one of the things they see as missing at the moment from environmental campaigning or indeed third sector campaigning generally, is an understanding of values and the importance of values in underpinning people’s commitment to engage in political process and to express concern about social and environmental issues.

Dr. Tom Crompton: We’re working to open debate with a wide range of third sector organizations – not just environmental organizations but also development and disability organizations, children’s charities and animal welfare charities – about the cultural values that seem to consistently underpin expression of concern about a wide range of social and environmental issues.

One implication of this work is that we should be designing or shaping our campaigns and communications, and indeed our entire external engagement, in a way which helps to engage and strengthen those values. These are values which almost everybody seems to hold already. It’s a question of bringing them to the fore, because they underpin not just our concern about environmental issues, but also the concern about a wide range of other social issues.

It seems that when we activate what psychologists call extrinsic values -which are concerns about things like wealth or social status or image, those values tend to suppress the importance that people attach to intrinsic values, or values associated with social and environmental concerns.

So there is an antagonistic relationship between these two sets of values. From that we suggest it is important that NGOs think carefully about the occasions in which they may be drawn to appeal to extrinsic values in the course of pursuing a particular campaign outcome. For example, drawing attention to the money that might be saved through increased energy conservation measures like turning down the central heating thermostat or drawing attention to the social image or status that might be achieved through buying a luxury hybrid car. These are messages that may be effective in encouraging uptake of that particular behavior but are likely to have collateral damages.

This work also points to the possibility of beginning to work across a wide range of NGOs in new coalitions, with groups which hitherto have not really collaborated. Many NGOs can find common cause to engage those more intrinsic values and begin to tackle and remove those things which tend to engage and strengthen extrinsic values.

For example, we might find common cause in tackling an influence which currently serves to strengthen unhelpful extrinsic values at a cultural level, namely, the impact of advertising. We have begun to build a coalition of NGOs working again on a very wide set of issues to ask what’s the role of advertising in potentially frustrating emergence of greater public engagements and more stronger expressions of public concern on all of our issues. But we might also work to help strengthen intrinsic values – for example, working with those who set the standards for teacher-training to introduce work to help children reflect on the importance of kindness in their lives.

Image Courtesy: ValuesandFrames.org

EWTT: Our society has become so materialistic. Is there a danger that there may be no common ground if we don’t address the ‘what’s in it for me?’ Are people going to listen to messages for less materialistic values?

Dr. Tom Crompton: There are several dimensions to that question and it is a very critical question. You wouldn’t embark on what we are suggesting unless you are convinced that the problems we confront are really quite immense and will require really fundamental changes in terms of the level of ambition we show to respond to those problems.

If you really believed that a few behavioural changes in the private sphere in terms of domestic energy efficiency savings or a bit of green consumption were going to be sufficient to tackle a problem like climate change, or if you believe that increasing people’s willingness to donate to development charities was really going to be sufficient to tackle the problem of global poverty, then you probably look at what we are proposing and suggest that it is too ambitious.

So the first thing to say is that the scale of challenge that we are confronting at the moment would require an ambitious response and at the moment we are not seeing that level of ambition.

The second thing to say is that whilst it’s true that on some indicators, it seems that some cultures are becoming more materialistic, and are holding those extrinsic values to be more important, in most nations, people still hold intrinsic values to be more important. In the UK, if you ask people what’s important to them they first and foremost mention those intrinsic values. They voice the importance of the connection to friends and family, they talk about self- direction, the importance of self -determination and creativity, they talk about sense of social justice and the sense of environmental concern. Extrinsic values such as wealth or power rate less importantly. The evidence also seems very clear that these intrinsic values are there in everybody to be engaged.

We recently conducted a study with psychologists from University of Cardiff where we took 750 ordinary citizens from the Cardiff community, and asked them what values were important to them, we gave them a value survey and we picked the top 10% for whom the extrinsic or materialistic values were most important.

We then asked half of these people to reflect for a few minutes on the importance of affiliation to friends and family, the importance of broad-mindedness. We made no mention of the environment. We asked the other half to reflect on the importance of wealth or popularity. Then we interviewed each participant about climate change, amongst other things. We transcribed the interviews and sent them a linguist who analysed the interviews without knowing whether a participant had been asked to think about intrinsic or extrinsic values.

We found that even though these people were by disposition more inclined towards extrinsic values, simply asking them to pause for a few minutes to reflect on the importance of affiliation towards friends and family or broadmindedness led to a statistically significant increase in the extent to which they saw climate change as being something that they felt they had some personal responsibility to address and something that they wanted to see addressed because of its importance for a wider society and not just for their own self- interest.

What we take from an experiment like that, and it corroborates several other lines of evidence, is that those intrinsic values matter for a lot for people and that it’s possible to engage them even in the short term. We are not necessarily talking here about changing in values. It’s more about thinking carefully about which values people already hold, which of these underpin a greater commitment to express social or environmental concern, and engaging with these in the course of our campaigns or communications.

EWTT: Companies often say they are bound by short-term results, such as sales targets or increasing shareholder returns, which relate to the extrinsic values you talk about. They tend to initiate sustainability initiatives only if it makes financial sense. How do you convince them to undertake them because it’s the right thing to do?

Dr. Tom Crompton: It is a challenge certainly. What we are suggesting goes beyond the business case for sustainability. It goes beyond simply pointing to those things that it’s in a business’s short-term economic interests to do, for example increasing energy efficiency or supply chain efficiency in a way which will simultaneously save money. We need to move to a situation where the responsibility that companies have to the societies in which they operate is seen to extend beyond simply making money.

Many companies are already demonstrating willingness to go beyond the business case for sustainable development and are taking unilateral action. It is of course easier for family owned companies or cooperatives to do that than it is for publicly owned companies, but even in the case of publically owned companies there are examples where at the very least they come together and demand a regulatory intervention or legislative intervention in order to shift the level of the playing field. In the UK, The Prince of Wales’ Corporate Leaders Group on Climate Change calls of government to enact new and longer-term policies to tackle climate change. Members of this group recognise that some steps to tackle climate change incur economic costs. But if together they can change the level of the playing field then these competitive costs could be equally shared across the competitors.

The other thing is to widen our concept of what corporate social responsibility means, to recognize that companies have a responsibility not just with immediate material foot prints of their activities – how much carbon do they produce, how much tropical rainforest is cut down in the course of them sourcing their raw materials – but also with what you might call mindprint. Mindprint includes impacts on cultural values, and that’s affected in a whole range of ways: the way in which a company advertises, the values that are activated in the course of using the products it manufactures, or how a company manages decision making processes. These include their HR practices and internally recognizing that many people work for business and that it is an important part of their lives. When you spend 40 hours a week in a business, the culture of that business is likely to impact your values as an individual. So there is a whole range of ways in which we are arguing businesses have a responsibility to look at not only their footprints but also their mindprint, which may be even greater than the impact that they have through their direct environment impacts – their footprint.

EWTT: Can businesses exploit intrinsic values in their advertising, and can this cause harm?

Dr. Tom Crompton: Many businesses are well aware of the importance of intrinsic values in building a loyal customer base and clearly those intrinsic values are the ones often reflected in terms of a company’s brand or its advertising. A lot of advertising appeals to intrinsic values in terms of strength of family relationships or connection to nature. The report we produced last year called ‘Think of Me as Evil’ was an attempt to open some of these ethical debates as they relate to advertising. Nobody knows for sure what the cultural or social impact of advertising that appeals to intrinsic values are, but some of the social psychologists we have worked with constructed quite persuasive arguments that actually such ads may be unhelpful. What these ads may actually serve to do is to increase people’s cynicism about intrinsic values or to create the impression that those values, when they come from elsewhere, are being deployed manipulatively in order to get them to do something; whether that’s to buy a product or to show some act of kindness. So it seems that there are dangers in deploying intrinsic values in pursuit of commercial interest.

EWTT: What about the behaviour or governments? How do you convince governments to look for alternative indicators of growth outside of GDP or overcome their fear of losing competitive advantage?

Dr. Tom Crompton: I agree with you fully on this. Those were precisely the constraints we hear from senior policy makers or decision makers in the trade regime. We would be arguing that at least for us in the UK we should be taking a unilateral stand in multilateral negotiations in order to help change the regime. What we hear constantly is that, “Oh well, we don’t have the political capital”, or “there would be competitiveness costs to the industry”: exactly the arguments which you have just been advancing. I suppose I just come back again to our starting point. One of our responses to that degree of political paralysis is that the change we need isn’t going to occur without far more vocal and powerful citizen engagement. It isn’t going to happen unless more people are writing to their MPs, or unless more people are out in the streets demonstrating; unless it is made clear to the political leaders that their own political future depends upon being more ambitious in responding to these things – even though there are economic costs. So our question at the outset was: What is it that underpins increased citizen engagement? What is it that underpins citizen concern? And this brings us back to values. If a diversity of third sector organizations come together to ask how it is that our cultural values influence our collective responses to social and environmental problems, they could have a profound impact on public debate.

Policy makers don’t enjoy the political space and public pressure for more ambitious change. So this whole work from the outset has been premised on the grounds that we need to find ways to increase public engagement on these issues. I don’t think governments are ready to embrace the scale of response that is necessary to respond to the challenges. But that said, there are certainly opportunities for governments within this and we have been engaging several governments on precisely this agenda.

The Welsh government is, for example, currently asking what are the narratives they have set down nationally within Wales around sustainable development? They have recognized that they have adopted a series of environmental policies in a piecemeal fashion, so we have a charge on plastic bags, for example, but they recognize as well that there are some fundamental limitations to what you can achieve by picking individual actions which are often quite modest in terms of their environmental impacts. They see the need for some sort of national narrative around sustainable development. Should this be constructed around the economic opportunities early investment in green technologies such as wind provides, that might give a country a competitive edge? Or should it be built around a sense that Wales has something important to contribute to the world as a small country that is light on its feet and has a strong sense of community and social justice? Clearly, I would argue for the latter.

In the case of the UK government, we are hearing that they too are frustrated by the limitations of a piecemeal approach to reducing individual’s carbon footprint for example. So they are confronting the fact that whilst they may urge people to insulate their loft on the basis that they will save money, they are finding at the same time that if people are insulating their loft solely to save money, there is no particular reason why the money that they save shouldn’t be spent in turning the central heating thermostat up and enjoying a warmer house or flying off to enjoy a weekend break: all of which are more carbon intensive activities. We have to look carefully at the values we are appealing to in trying to change private-sphere behaviours.

EWTT: What do you have to say about the way one should engage on social media?

Dr. Tom Crompton: Social media is only one way in which third sector organizations impact on cultural values, albeit an important one, and the most easily changed. I think that there are many others, including policies that they are campaigning for, the way in which they campaign, the way in which they organize their own organizations and their own internal policies.

Online groups might begin to look at the values that they appeal to in the course of constructing their online requests for people to sign petitions: what’s the impact of these values on the longevity of people’s engagement, and the success with which they encourage people to actually sign the petition?

My expectation would be that they would be likely to build a more loyal relationship with their supporters when that relationship is premised on connecting with people’s intrinsic rather than their extrinsic values. There may be instances where you can successfully encourage large numbers of people to sign a petition on the basis of their self- interest, but I would argue that those supporters are likely to express a less general, or less systemic concern about a wide range of social and environmental issues, particularly where those depart from their immediate self- interest, and they are likely to make for less durable relationships. They are likely to be more fickle.

EWTT: How do you intend to take your studies forward? What’s the broader vision for the kind of work you do?

Dr. Tom Crompton: Our aim is to engage in the first instance a wider swathe of NGOs in this debate. In the UK at least, there is a huge appetite for this at the moment. We have already run over 60 workshops for different NGOs in UK from a very wide range of different issue groups and interest groups. That work will continue in terms of engaging third sector organizations in this conversation. It’s increasingly becoming an international conversation. We recently ran a series of workshops in a number of Scandinavian countries as there is an appetite there to begin to put together hubs of NGOs who are working on these issues and building a conversation in those countries. We are going to be running workshops soon in Australia; we have got workshops in Brussels, possibly in Canada so there is an increasing international interest which we haven’t really gone out to court, this is interest which has come to us really.

Part of what we are doing is deepening our already extensive relationship with academics on the evidence. Hitherto that evidence base has been drawn largely from social psychology but we are aware that social psychology represents only one route into this discussion. So we want to increasingly work with people from other disciplines, political science, psychotherapy, anthropology, and neurosciences and we are beginning that process. We are doing more research ourselves in terms of taking real NGO communications and asking what the impacts of those are. For example, we have put together a consortium of all the main UK conservation groups and we will be working with a psychologist and a linguist to analyse our entire external communication over a 6 month period to ask “what are the values that we are activating at the moment in the course of those communications”.

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About the Interviewer:

Michelle Desilets is Founder and Executive Director of Orangutan Land Trust, a UK-based NGO which supports sustainable solutions for the long-term survival of the orangutan in the wild. She is also Founder of Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation UK, and Member of the Board of Borneo Orangutan Survival Germany, which supports the largest primate rescue and protection project in the world.

She was in Singapore recently when she talked to us about the threats to orangutans, especially from the palm oil industry. Orangutan Land Trust is a key player in the campaign for sustainable palm oil, and Desilets shares some of the nuances in the debate about sustainable palm oil, the challenges in the Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) process, and what would be more effective to save the rainforests – boycotting palm oil, or more direct action through petitions which influence industry and government behaviour.